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Saturday, September 04, 2010

Step Two: Learn the Backgrounds, Experiences, Philosophies, Circumstances, Preferences, and Observations of Those Who Will Lead Breakthroughs

A wise man will hear and increase learning,And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,To understand a proverb and an enigma,The words of the wise and their riddles.Proverbs 1:5-6 (NKJV)

Many people may feel discouraged about becomingbreakthrough servants because of the gap between whatthey know now and what they need to learn aboutbreakthrough leaders and stakeholders. Suchdiscouragement may be increased if one of theweaknesses of their organization is fragmentinginformation on a need-to-know basis. In someorganizations, the preference for secrecy might make youthink that lives are at stake. More typically, informationscarcities are made worse by:

• desires to increase influence versus rivals in theorganization.• not understanding the huge benefits of knowing more.• lack of curiosity about what else is going on.• ignorance about how to learn more.

The less formal authority an individual has, the less likelyare those with more authority to encourage or to supportthe individual’s efforts to learn more. What should abreakthrough servant do?

Many approaches can help, some of which are outlined inthis section. Choose the approaches that best fit yoursituation. In any case, begin by praying for guidance.There is probably an attractive route for quickly gainingthe information that the Holy Spirit can show you. It willalmost always be the right next step after praying tolearn more about the leaders who will have to developand implement the breakthroughs. As I point out in theBreakthrough Leadership Blueprint, leaders usually don’tknow enough about each other to work well together. Isuggest that you assume that leaders are ignorant abouteach other until you receive overwhelming contraryevidence.

As a step toward finding out more about leaders, startby identifying some important task that the overallorganizational leader wants to do that would clearlybenefit from having all leaders learn more about eachother. Your supervisor probably knows whatimportant tasks are being planned or are about to beimplemented. You can safely assume that if the task isn’timportant enough to draw your supervisor’s attention, thetask probably isn’t important enough to persuade anyoneto want to learn more about the organization’s leaders.

Here are some of the circumstances to look for inidentifying an important task that can justify learningmore about the leaders:

• Concern that some leaders will resist doing the task• Doubt that the leaders have the needed skill to do thetask• Disagreement among the leaders about how to do thetask• A need for more openness in order to implement thetask• A history of unsuccessful efforts to do the task

Once you have identified a task presenting several ofthese circumstances that the organizational leaderchampions, find out more about how your supervisor seesthe task in terms of her or his responsibilities and career.In most organizations, ambitious people see helping high-priority tasks favored by the organizational leader asopportunities to shine and to advance their careers.Those who care about the organization’s success will alsobe determined to do what they can to help. If yoursupervisor indicates that he or she wants to help pushthe task forward, ask your supervisor if she or he wouldlike you to prepare some thoughts about what might bedone to be more successful in performing the task.

Pray about what to say, and take at least a week (but nomore than two weeks) to get back to your supervisor withyour ideas. Then, share your thoughts informally in a one-on-one meeting. Part of your purpose is to encourage your supervisor to propose that leaders who will be involved inperforming the task learn more about each other. Chancesare that your supervisor hasn’t thought of this possibilitybefore. It may be that the supervisor doesn’t have anyidea how well the leaders know one another.

If your supervisor strongly disagrees that the leaders needto get to know more about each other, you should drop thesubject for the moment. If your supervisor isn’t sure,suggest that he or she informally check with her or hissupervisor to see what the supervisor thinks. Offer toprepare a memo or paper that raises the issue so thatyour supervisor can address the subject more easily withher or his supervisor. If your supervisor agrees thatmore information is needed, ask what you can do toprovide support in raising the issue with his or hersupervisor. Ideally, it would be good to present to yoursupervisor’s supervisor with your supervisor present tosupport you. In any of these communications, feel freeto share the Breakthrough Leadership Blueprint. Add tothat information anything that you can think of thatsupports the need for gaining more information. If thoseapproaches don’t work, encourage your supervisor toexperiment with helping those who work for him or herto know one another better. Describe the potentialbenefits. Suggest that your supervisor involve someonefrom the human resources department, a part of theorganization that will typically encourage and assist suchan initiative. After the experimentation, suggest to yoursupervisor that he or she report the results to her or hissupervisor. Perhaps the supervisor’s supervisor will wantto try the same. The human resources department mayalso decide to recommend that others duplicate theinitiative. Eventually, the organizational leader will learnabout one of these experiments and will probablyrecognize the potential benefit from applying the approachwith her or his direct reports.

If none of those approaches are viable, ask for permissionto run an experiment in learning more about one another just involving those who are your counterparts in otherparts of the organization. Because implementing theexperiment crosses organizational boundaries, such arequest will eventually reach high into the organizationand will often be granted. Again, a success will quicklyspread interest in doing more. If their subordinates arebecoming better acquainted across the organization,leaders will eventually realize that they should do thesame thing. Someone will propose the idea to theorganizational leader, and that suggestion will probablytrigger such a desirable information-gathering activity.

In any encouragement to have leaders become betteracquainted, be sure to point out the benefits of havingthose who report to the leaders also become betteracquainted with their leaders. If that encouragement isacted on, you should be able create a forum where youwill gain information about the other organizationalleaders by asking those who are in your part of theorganization.

If none of these other activities work, get to know whoeverwrites the company newspaper or newsletter that is sentout to all employees. Honestly tell the writer what youlike about the publication and share your interest inknowing more about other people in the organization.Suggest how great it would be for you and others ifprofiles were written about the organization’s leaders.The writer will know that most leaders enjoy beinginterviewed and written about, and he or she will probablyfollow through. If the writer indicates that there’s notime to do all that, offer to help by conducting theinterviews and drafting all of the articles.

A lot of information about leaders can also be gatheredfrom sources that aren’t within your organization. Checkthe Internet for any speeches, articles, and videos thatinclude your organization’s leaders. If you learn of otherorganizations the leaders have worked for, it may be thatyou can use mutual friends or acquaintances to learnabout what the leaders did and acted like in thoseprevious roles. If you find out what schools the leadersattended, you may also be able to read profiles in alumnipublications. In doing any of this research, be sure thatyour activity is very low profile and undetected, or yourresearch can be viewed defensively by the person who isbeing studied.

You can also learn more about the leaders from internalsources. Start by reading any press releases yourorganization has made about the person. There’s usuallyone that describes a leader’s background at the time ofhiring or promotion.

In addition, you may know people who work with theleaders. Buy those people breakfast or a cup of coffeeafter work. While chatting, ask about what it is like to workwith the various leaders and why the leaders operate in theways that they do. Inevitably, some personal backgroundand perspectives will come out.

At some point, you will have done all you can to learn moreabout the organization’s leaders. Congratulations on whatyou’ve accomplished! Now, turn your attention to learningabout stakeholders. Once again, start by praying forguidance from the Holy Spirit. Because of the wide scopeof this task, exhaust internal resources before youconsider external ones. Starting internally will speedlearning while reducing the amount of work involved.

Much of what you want to learn about stakeholders willneed to be interpreted in terms of what customers andend users (or beneficiaries) perceive, think, do, and feel.In addition, many organizations have market researchactivities that collect and analyze information aboutcustomers and end users (or beneficiaries). Suchinformation is usually not kept too secret because manypeople involved in marketing, sales, and developing newofferings need to know that information. Further, manysalespeople are perfectly happy to describe in detail thecustomers and end users (or beneficiaries) that theycome into contact with. If any of your normalassignments involve anything to do with marketing,sales, and developing new offerings, you should be ableto simply ask to see what you need. If you don’t havesuch an assignment, volunteer to work on one.

While a lot of survey-based customer and end user(or beneficiary) information is pretty abstract and dry,you may also find that videos were created of somevisits and round table discussions that include thesepeople. Try to see these videos. You will learn morerapidly if you hear their thoughts and ideas expressedin their own words and with their own gestures. Manyorganizations also invite key partners, distributors, andsuppliers to visit, and you may also find video andaudio recordings of many of the speeches anddiscussions that occurred during these visits. As youwatch and listen to what they have to say, consider howaccurately they perceive the customers and end users(or beneficiaries). Try to understand why their vantagepoints might be incomplete or inaccurate. Whatever elseyou cannot explain about any misperceptions is probablyrelated to individual backgrounds and opinions. You cansupplement this information by speaking with those inyour organization who normally work with partners andsuppliers. If you have any assignments that wouldbenefit by your visiting partners or suppliers, be sure todo so. While visiting, you will quickly get a sense of the perspectives and personalities of those people andorganizations.

Employees are obviously more accessible to you thanany other stakeholder group. Most will be happy to speakwith you. If you have a friend who works in your humanresources department, you may also be able to learnabout or read surveys of employee perspectives andattitudes that can help you. The organization’s employeenewsletter will often contain information aboutindividuals throughout the organization. From thoseprofiles, you may learn the names of people who wouldbe well worth interviewing because of their uniqueperspectives. For instance, if someone recently led areorganization of the organization’s reporting structure,that person can tell you a great deal about theknowledge, attitudes, and actions that the leaders hopeto affect through the reorganization. If such surveyshaven’t been conducted, you may be able to persuadesomeone in the human resources department to do so.

Employees’ families are a group about which a little isknown by each part of the organization, but often thetotal picture is blurry except in the smallestorganizations. Human resources people can again providehelpful information if any surveys have been done or ifyou can encourage them to conduct such surveys. If nosurveys are available or can be commissioned, attendemployee activities to which families are invited. Whilethere, converse with family members to find out moreabout their circumstances and how the company affectstheir lives.

If your organization is a large one, it probably has adepartment that works in governmental and localrelations. People in that department often have adetailed understanding of how your organization affectsthe communities in which it operates. Interactions withthe communities your organization serves and in whichit operates are usually pretty visible. You can searchonline for references in local publications that describeyour organization. In such articles, critics and advocateswill probably be quoted. Lawsuits are also disclosedpublicly, which can reveal some problem areas. Inaddition, you would do well to speak with localgovernment officials, business leaders, and heads oflocal nonprofit organizations (with your organization’spermission) to find out how they see the effects of yourorganization that you haven’t been able to gain fromany other sources. It’s always valuable to find out as much information as you can from any organized,continuing critics of your organization: They haveoften done more research than your organization hasinto its effects on communities and society in general.

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About Me

I'm a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and attended Harvard Business School to study marketing while in law school. I'm a member of the bar in Massachusetts.
I teach graduate courses in entrepreneurship and strategic management on-line at Rushmore University (www.rushmore.edu).
I head a consulting firm (www.mitchellandco.com), that specializes in entrepreneurship, finance and strategy.
I am a co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution (www.2000percentsolution.com), The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, The Ultimate Competitive Advantage (the most highly praised business book by customer reviewers in its first year), and The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook.
I head a pro bono site for improving world progress (www.fastforward400.com).
I have headed The Billionaire Entrepreneurs' Master Mind (see http://billiondollarbusiness.blogspot.com) since 2006.